DIJANA MILOSEVIC & IVANA MILENOVIC POPOVIC

INTERVIEW WITH DIJANA MILOSEVIC & IVANA MILENOVIC POPOVIC

It is a rare privilege to speak with artists who have such a profound and intimate connection to their work; in talking to Dijana and Ivana you begin to understand that they carefully hold up every aspect of their theatre-making to examine it in the light. Dah Teater are a constellation of disruption, playfulness, curiosity, doggedness, the birth of the theatre company being contemporaneous with the outbreak of the war in the Balkans in 1991. With over 30 shows made over the past 27 years, working right through the war that broke a totalitarian state into a sectarian region, Dah continues to be a force in Eastern-European and International theatre, opposing, teasing, reminding and questioning its audiences using a unique fusion of avant-garde and postmodern practices. Dijana and the company tour around the world to give workshops, lectures and performances, whilst fighting to keep an independent Dah Teater open without government subsidy or state support.

This was a wide-ranging conversation about the history of Dah Teater and the evolution of the company and their artistic product, but also taking in current reflections on the recent civil war in the Balkans and how artists can respond in the ‘dark times’ to survive overt and covert forms of censorship. Though both Ivana and Dijana express concern about younger generations looking away from their country’s history, they also attest to the talents of their creative collaborators, as well as the unique and inventive theatre culture in Serbia.

SERBIA PERFORMANCE

Quirky, feisty, funny and provocative, this performance directed by Dijana Milosevic and performed by Ivana Milenovic Popovic, Chloe Atkinson, Eleanor Kingsford and Ruby Mcilroy, was scripted from the perspective of young people reflecting on recent social and political changes, before leaving a letter to the older generations. Made in a post-Brexit climate, in a collaboration between UK students and practitioners from Serbia, this piece was the most ideological in challenging the systems of government, democracy, and foregrounding how the young people felt politically vulnerable and cheated from a future without European allegiance. That statements about contemporary feminism, the state of social services and state transparency were delivered in amongst swaying dances, synchronised rolling on the floor, and communal hair-brushing, served to underscore the strong bonds of (improvised) communities at the same time as fracture in the super structures. The audience were simultaneously charmed and disquieted by this performance, keeping in step with Dah Teater’s ability to disrupt and provoke through anachronistic constellation of word and image.